Background
Myanmar is at a historic stage in its development. A new Constitution was adopted in May 2008 and elections were held in November 2010 with bi-elections in April 2012. Parliament and governments have been formed at the national and region/state levels and a number of reforms focusing on good governance, human rights and reaching cease-fire agreements in a number of conflict areas are on-going. These reforms are seen as positive steps which have led to increase in engagement with the international community and allowed the Executive Board of UNDP to lift mandate restrictions resulting in the formulation of Country Programme Action Plan (CPAP) that was signed by the Union Government of Myanmar in April 2013. Widespread sectarian conflict, prolonged displacement and inability to find durable solutions for the displaced shadowed the reform agenda.In Rakhine, inter-communal violence in June and October 2012 resulted in massive displacement of populations, damage assets and loss of livelihoods and lives. Over 200,000 people were affected and at least 100,000 people displaced and put 115,000 others in critical life-saving situation. Recent statistics on the number of displaced population do not show progress of return. In July 2013, approximately 140,000 people were displaced across 10 districts in Rakhine State, hosted in 76 camps and camp-like settings. In September 2013, the number of IDPs has increased to 143,000 (26,534 hh). While progress has been made in responding to basic life-saving needs, the absence of a clear return and resettlement programme, lack of freedom of movement, tensions between displaced population and their surrounding villages belonging to other ethnic groups remain high, and vulnerability to natural disasters continue to be a major challenge among IDPs in Rakhine State.
In the context of protracted displacement and ongoing tensions between communities, early recovery efforts are integral to bridging the gap between humanitarian and development activities, encouraging self-reliance, supporting fragile local economies and building resilience. A shift from humanitarian to recovery is a priority across all programming that builds on coordination and partnership established with clusters/sectors, government and local authorities and experiences of partners in supporting livelihoods such as provision of conditional cash grants for small businesses, income-generation activities (such as livestock breeding programmes, small scale farming), and vocational training for income-generating activities.
In Rakhine, a number of assessments that inform early recovery activities were conducted to better assess the economy, livelihood situation and poverty level of the affected people as well as to guide the formulation of future responses. Based on the work of the Early Recovery Sector in 2013 and the recommendations of the assessments conducted, the sector will focus on: (a) support governance capacity for early recovery activities that includes supporting the Government’s efforts to develop long-term plans (including township-level planning and return and resettlement plans) and to improve the operational environment, capacity-building activities for local Government and local NGOs, (b) strengthening preparedness for potential return and resettlement of IDPs through the development of early recovery database to be used to strengthen Government and national and international organizations to address recovery needs of conflict-affected communities, and (c) supporting economic recovery of conflict-affected persons.
Given the situation of protracted displacement and prolonged humanitarian situation early recovery takes on a crisis prevention and recovery approach in Rakhine and Kachin. While economic recovery remains the building block of recovery, the ER sector in Rakhine and Kachin will take on an increasing conflict prevention approach focusing on creating an enabling environment, and building local governance capacities (government and local NGOs). The approach is supported by the new programme structure of UNDP that allows better coordination of its functions as global ER cluster lead and bringing Rakhine and Kachin under Early Recovery framework where UNDP programming, design and implementation and management of programmes in Rakhine and Kachin will come under the ER framework.
UNDP has a global mandate for ER cluster coordination. Although no formal ER cluster has been activated in Myanmar, ER interventions are coordinated through an ER sector led by UNDP (the situation is similar for other sectors, where coordination is done through sector groups than through formal clusters. Clusters have only been activated recently for Shelter, WASH and Health). In Rakhine and Kachin, the ER sector includes Government, UN Agencies and NGOs while in Yangon it includes UN agencies and NGO representatives.
The Early Recovery Officer will report to and be directly supervised by Early Recovery Manager (international) based in the duty station. In the absence of the ER Manager s/he will report directly to the ER Specialist based in Yangon. The position will support the roll out of ER coordination in Rakhine and Kachin, the development and implementation of ER response in these locations and development and strengthening of government relationships to further the ER agenda in both locations. This position is expected to develop and maintain strategic relationship with government, local authorities and humanitarian agencies.
Duties and Responsibilities
ER Sector Coordination:- Support the integration of early recovery into Township level planning;
- Facilitate communication among and between UN agencies, I/NGOs, local governments and civil society to facilitate a coherent response to and implementation of Early Recovery strategies and plans;
- Organize coordination meetings and ensure appropriate follow up to decisions and actions;
- Support the preparation of meeting materials;
- Follow up on the outcomes of the meeting;
- Maintain database of all relevant assessments and organizations, who is doing what where (3W) matrixes and regularly update such information;
- Lead ER sector coordination, as and when required.
- Support the analysis and decision making through ensuring collection, processing, interpretation and dissemination of information across sectors and clusters and roll-out of ER township coordination;
- Support coordination, complementation of information and developing baseline data for ER Planning, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and reporting;
- Support the conduct of ER assessments, data collection and analysis;
- Liaise and communicate with humanitarian partners, government and local authorities, between ER and other Sectors/clusters, providing technical assistance on data collection, analysis, and reporting of ER data;
- Maintain contact data base of ER Sector partners and clients using agreed format and updating project information through 4W and project data base and producing derivative products such as tables, graphs, maps for presentation and reporting;
- Represent ER in humanitarian cluster/ sector meetings and coordination mechanisms when required;
- Organize workshops and meetings on ER as and when required;
- Conduct field visits/ joint missions with other agencies to assess needs, identify entry points for ER or general monitoring of situation.
- Working closely with the ER Manager to develop ER Sector strategies, local level planning processes and response plans through;
- Conducting desk reviews and research;
- Advising and liaising with the government counterparts to ensure that the overall process is coordinated government stakeholders, and aligned with national processes and priorities;
- Facilitating consultations at the State and local level;
- Providing quality assurance to the translation of existing government plans to English and any other materials required to be translated to support the process. While most of the translation will be done by professional translators, it is expected that this position will provide quality assurance to the translations;
- There will be expectation on this position to provide translation in times of urgency and interpret during meetings with government officials;
- Organize workshops and meetings to generate information that feeds into the strategies as and when required;
- Maintain relationship with government officials and liaise as necessary.
- Under the supervision of ER Managers, support Area Office Coordinators and field staff in delivery of results in a timely manner as agreed upon in the AWP;
- Helping to ensure field reporting is strengthened and managed.
- Facilitate programme delivery and implementation;
- Monitoring of programme activities;
- Better understand the operating environment so that bottlenecks impeding programme delivery are effectively addressed at the Country Office level;
- Strengthen relationship with state level government officials and local NGOs;
- Perform any other duty as reasonably requested by the ER Manager.
Competencies
Corporate Competencies:- Demonstrates integrity and fairness, by modelling the UN/UNDP’s values and ethical standards;
- Promotes the vision, mission and strategic goals of UNDP;
- Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.
- Demonstrated capacity to integrate principles of aid effectiveness, accountability, human rights, and gender equality in policy making and programming;
- Capacity to interact with senior officials;
- Strong analytical, negotiation and communication skills, including ability to produce high quality practical specialized reports and knowledge products.
- Demonstrated well developed people management and organizational skills;
- Excellent negotiation and networking skills;
- Outstanding and effective communication and interpersonal skills
- Ability to identify and develop partnerships and maintain good relations with government institutions and other relevant parties.
- Mature judgment and initiative;
- Proven ability to provide strategic direction in practice area;
- Independent judgment and discretion in advising on handling major policy issues and challenges.
- Outstanding and effective coordination ability;
- Ability to write clear, concise and effective correspondence;
- Ability to identify and analyse trends, opportunities and threats to the implementation of the project;
- Ability to articulate and communicate ideas effectively, efficiently and accurately among all parties;
- Attention to details and ability to prioritize;
- Ability to multi-task and work under pressure to keep with tight deadlines;
- Solution-oriented, driven and practical.
Required Skills and Experience
Education:- Bachelors Conflict studies/peace building, international relations, law and other relevant areas.
- 2 years of experience of working in transitional/ conflict/ recovery/ disaster context;
- Demonstrated experience of working in the application of conflict sensitive and peacebuilding approaches;
- Demonstrated experience in engaging state governments and authorities with high degree of professional success;
- Experience with data collection and research;
- Proven representational skills;
- Ability to use MS Office (especially Word, power point, excel) with ease;
- Experience in management of projects/programmes.
- Fluency (written and spoken) English and the local language of the post location is a must.
Candidates must apply on-line through UNDP job website together with complete duly filled and signed UN-P11 form, academic qualification certificates.
P11 can be downloaded here:
http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/operations/jobs.html